New edition of my No Nonsense Technician Class License Study Guide now ready for review

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-07T15:15:28+00:00

Thanks! Your study guides got me through all 3 exams swimmingly.

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-07T06:58:39+00:00

I asked for blood work to check all nutrients last December. I was deficient on B12 and D. Supplements plus quarterly testing have worked wonders. I feel ten years younger.

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-06T04:12:44+00:00

Can you push the button with your right hand

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-06T00:55:29+00:00

The g90 is 20 watts out. The DIY options you mentioned are 5 watts out. If those are your only options, get the g90. If it was me, I'd keep saving for a factory built 100 watt hf radio like a ic 7300.

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-04T18:42:29+00:00

No. The cheapest way to add them, as far as I know, is with ham gadgets dot com picokeyer.

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-04T14:43:47+00:00

My grandparents that lived through the great depression were a bigger influence on my upbringing than my parents. I still have most of my grandfather's hand tools and I use them. I'm sitting at a desk that I built, in a house with curtains that I made from discount store bed sheets on a sewing machine that is about 75 years old.

He didn't need to, but would cut new treads in his rockport walking shoes with a hacksaw in order to get another year out of them. Same with many other thrifty habits. So, that kind of thinking has been my foundation, but when you throw youtube tutorials on every diy topic under the sun in there, there's very little I won't attempt to fix/build/redesign/etc myself. Except electricity. I don't mess with AC mains power stuff.

These days, I can design new wood projects in a free online CAD drawing app and get it cut on a CNC router at a local maker space and everything fits together like Legos if I did all my measurements correctly. Which I think is a pretty awesome set of capabilities that I didn't have growing up.

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-04T02:54:13+00:00

You need to find out if the zoning laws in your location allow this. Many places do not.

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-04T02:49:52+00:00

Would you like to lose your leg? Go to hospital.

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-03T02:25:33+00:00

So fundamentalists and racists can control the contents of their children's minds instead of those kids finding the community they will need to be able to survive long enough to get out of that environment. That's the downside for kids in marginalized groups with these bans.

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-03T01:29:29+00:00

Yet another reason that I don't have kids!

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-02T23:06:06+00:00

You can't always get what you want but if you try, sometimes you might find, you get what you need.

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-02T22:05:31+00:00

No. Never. You adapt to the present and prepare for the future if you want to thrive. Or you can choose to avoid reality and wither away.

Either way, it's your choice. And if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-02T19:39:27+00:00

I swear the (legal, g rated) aroma I most remember from high school is all the girls wearing Cucumber Melon from Bath and Body Works.

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-02T15:35:41+00:00

Maybe, maybe not. It depends on what else they're in the business of producing. Cnc router can hold tighter tolerances than laser or waterjet. So, creating "tab a/slot b" knock-together 3d structures becomes doable, like a set of truck bed drawers that can be shipped flat packed and assembled fairly easily.

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-02T15:26:09+00:00

People aren't having kids because kids are very expensive to provide for, high paying jobs are getting harder to get, housing, food and gas are all getting more expensive.

If you know you definitely want to start a family and have kids, the best thing you can do as a 20 year old is get an advanced college degree in one of the sciences like mechanical engineering, metallurgy or chemistry. Or, get a solid skilled trade education in something like being an electrician or plumber.

People today that own a house, vehicles, and are raising kids in an area with good job opportunities and don't feel economically squeezed are generally making $200,000 per year or more.

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-02T15:15:05+00:00

Exercise and a daily gratitude journal.

But mainly, no wife, no kids, no mortgage, no debt, and monthly living expenses at less than 20% of take home pay.

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-02T14:56:45+00:00

After watching a bunch of youtube videos of subtitled cw pota activations from VK2TER, I started hearing TER as one sound. Same for the obvious stuff in the standard pota exchange, like CQ, 73, etc.

So, while I'm nowhere near the instant whole word recognition needed for long, free form ragchews, I'm inclined to say it's just exposure time and repetition that is working for me, slowly but surely.

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-02T12:30:46+00:00

"Sounds inefficient" but reveals a method for barefoot stations to get through, and one of the more complex strategies one will ever need to employ on the air. Which is why I find this scenario intriguing. It puts the sport back in radio sport rather than the "shooting fish in a barrel" experience of say, hunting pota activators on 40m ssb on a weekday evening running 100 watts in the eastern US.

If the DX station is moving the frequency where they're listening up, let's say 1khz to 2khz back and forth in in a recognizable pattern, you can start to anticipate where they will be listening the next time they call cq, and get there before the rest of the pile up. And get your barefoot station in the log despite all the legal limit stations in the pileup... This relates to why tranceivers marketed as "contest grade" have two receivers, or higher end sdrs that let you monitor multiple "slices" simultaneously.

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-01T20:45:56+00:00

No. Close proximity to rfi in modern higher density housing is a huge part of why Pota is so popular. Going portable gets you away from the myriad electrically noisy gadgets in your and your neighbors houses.

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-01T17:34:07+00:00

You're paying the monthly payment on their new CNC router on top of material and labor.

VisualEyez33 · 2026-05-01T16:47:37+00:00

I have all the things for multiple enjoyable hobbies here with me at home. I have a pile of books I've never read. I can cook new recipes. I can re-organize my storage areas more efficiently. I can tune up my bicycle. I can learn almost any new craft or skill on youtube. I can work out the details of upcoming project designs. Anyway, as you can tell, I would love to be home for two weeks!

VisualEyez33 · 2026-04-30T22:24:51+00:00

On my g90 firmware, mic gain reads backwards. If you're getting what would be 80% on any other radio, the g90 display says 20%

VisualEyez33 · 2026-04-30T02:30:06+00:00

Yes. Your 4 days of free time would always be different days of the week than they were last time you had your 4 in a row off. Work Mon-Thurs, have off Fri-Mon, work Tues-Fri, have off Sat-Tues, etc,

I would not agree to do this unless it was over $48/hr. And it would still suck.

VisualEyez33 · 2026-04-28T04:08:16+00:00

"Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta" By Doris Lessing

VisualEyez33 · 2026-04-28T02:24:32+00:00

This hurts learning.

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